Cherie knew the girls weren't simply missing. They were dead. Devoured by a monster.
And she knows exactly who it is.
Not that anyone believes her. But the monster is getting sloppy, leaving a body in the open. Cherie has to find a way to make it...
A cloud of tension hung over the orphanage, following the girls who wandered the halls in clumps of three or four to be safe. Before there was a general sense of loss when one of the girls 'left', the usual range of incredulity and dismissal that came with runaways. The Sisters were decent, it wasn't a hardship to live in the orphanage, if you could stomach the heavily structured lifestyle. They were flexible for nuns, and the three meals a day with a guaranteed clean bed to sleep in held a higher appeal to most of them than adults seemed to realize. Still, Lizzy was right, people in general, not just adults, tended to avoid the unpleasant theories until it was staring them in the face.
Someone left Alice's body in the open and now the girls knew fear.
The only place they felt truly safe was in the crowded atmosphere of the dining hall or classes, providing large groups, and open bright spaces.
Cherie tried not to sulk in her corner of the classroom, vaguely paying attention to the math lesson while she mulled over the monster's worlds.
Why even plant the idea in her head? Well, why did it talk to her at all in the first place. Sometimes, Cherie wondered if the body remembered. The idea was so heartbreaking she couldn't dwell on it for long.
Instead she thought of her conversation with Lizzy earlier. There was another one who seemed to know more than she let on. She wondered what it would take for the girl to open up to her. Cherie hated to admit it, but since Jenny vanished, her social skills were rusty. She was secretly counting on Lizzy's unique circumstances to grease the proverbial wheel between them.
It'd been too long since Cherie had someone to confide in, she would take what she could get.
The day dragged on. Thankfully, she only shared one classroom with the monster, who sat across the room from her due to the wonders of alphabetical seating. She avoided eye contact and kept her head down, running the chain around her neck through her fingers.
The dismissal bell couldn't sound soon enough.
Cherie scooped up her books, intending to use the two hour block of study time before dinner with Lizzy.
She spent the trudge up to the bell tower praying the little blond would be there. Cherie couldn't completely stifle her sigh of relief at the sight of Lizzy perched up on the window sill where she first saw her. She wore a school uniform now, the same black and gray wool as Cherie and her white blond hair hung loose in springy curls.
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"You got up here fast," said Cherie, smiling up at her. The girl returned it with her usual slightly sad one, swinging down from the rafters.
"You come here more often than I thought," she said, twirling a curl around her index finger. Her words were a bitter reminder that made Cherie's shoulders ache with the same old tension.
"I used to come up here all the time with my best friend," she said, settling onto her pilfered mattress. She gestured for the girl to join her. Lizzy sat on the far end, her shoulders rounded inward and closed off.
"Did you have a falling out?"
Cherie snorted. "Something like that."
They parried silence back and forth for several minutes, daring the other to speak when Lizzy finally broke.
"Do you think it will take someone else?" Her fingers twirled faster in her hair.
Cherie sighed. "For sure. Body dump aside, there isn't enough danger of it being caught for it to stop."
Lizzy made a face. "You sound awfully certain of that."
She answered the statement with a shrug. "Even monsters gotta eat."
More furious hair twirling from her slight companion. "You think it eats them? That is an unsettling theory."
"It's not a theory if you saw Alice's body."
Her fingers tripped over themselves, snarling in her curls. "When--" she began in a croak. She paused to lick her pale lips. "When do you think another will disappear?"
"If it follows its pattern, I have about a month to figure something out."
"Pattern?" Lizzy blinked at her, the second half of Cherie's sentence sinking in. "Figure something out? What exactly do you intend to do?"
"Stop the monster, obviously. You were right. The adults aren't gonna do shit until there's a pile of dead girls at their feet."
Lizzy pursed her lips. "Why?"
Cherie rolled her shoulders, attempting to ease the knot from them. Now that the words were out in the open, she felt better, even if the follow through was pants-wettingly scary. "Why stop it? Aside from the fact it's eating people?"
Lizzy gave her poor curl a vicious yank, pulling several strands free. "No, why bother to save them at all? Forgive me for saying so, but you are a bit of a loner, correct Cherie?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"These girls aren't your friends," Lizzy sputtered. "Why not just keep your head down and let the monster run its course?"
Cherie bit her lip, surprised by the girl's callous words, despite their ring of truth. "One of the girls it took was my friend." Her most precious friend, close as sisters. The closest she'd come to family since landing in this place.
Lizzy straightened. "I understand revenge."
"It's not, not really," said Cherie. Jenny was so beyond revenge she didn't know how to mourn her friend's loss.
"Then why? Why risk yourself this way?"
"Someone has to," said Cherie, laying back on the mattress. Cobwebs wafted down from the ceiling overhead. Odd, the Sisters were usually so fastidious with the cleaning. She glanced sideways at the fidgeting Lizzy. "You gonna help me or what?"
Lizzy scowled at her. "No fun throwing your life away by yourself?"
Cherie carefully kept her eyes on those swaying curtains of webbing. "Not much of a risk when you're already dead."
